


The Body in the Mirror

by justanotherboyinblue



Category: Original Work
Genre: 1940s, DID/OSDD, Electroconvulsive Therapy, Implied/Referenced Torture, Major character death - Freeform, Mental Asylum, Mental Disorder, Oswald Chekhov Psychiatric Institute, psychiatric institute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:14:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23465239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justanotherboyinblue/pseuds/justanotherboyinblue
Summary: Mental asylums in the 1940s are known to be unkind to their patients, but Ruby is made aware of exactly how unkind
Kudos: 1





	The Body in the Mirror

It had been a long day, and as with most days like this, I escaped to the quiet of the girls’ bathroom on the second floor of my school that was always empty. Absentmindedly fidgeting with the cuff of my sleeve, I felt Jason’s presence, asking if I was alright.

Sometime during the conversation with Jason, I had gotten up from my seat on the floor and started pacing the length of the bathroom, still playing with my sleeve, rolling it up and down, feeling the button between my fingers. I was so caught up in our conversation that I hadn’t remembered to keep my voice down and didn't have the chance to notice my classmate peering into the room before they had disappeared.  
  


I snapped my head up at the sound of running footsteps and poked my head out of the bathroom entrance, hearing the footsteps fade out, getting farther away. Shrugging my shoulders, I glanced at the clock and noticed I was late for class once again. Berating myself for losing track of time, I realized why someone was sprinting outside. I quickly slung my satchel over my shoulder and made my way to class.

Not even a week later I found myself sitting in the back of my father’s car, driving somewhere I didn’t know. The roads Father drove on were unfamiliar to me.

“Father, where are we going?”

“To a place where they can fix children like you.”

I was concerned with the way Father talked to me, worried about what I had done wrong. I looked to Mother for support, but she refused to look at me, only making snide remarks to Father about how I was ‘broken’ and that ‘they’ll put her back together, but first they’ll have to break her’. It was at this point, when I was on the edge of tears, that Jason took over so that I could rest.

When I woke we had arrived, where, I still did not know. I followed Father’s gruff instructions to grab my bag and followed him inside along with Mother. As we walked through the entrance, I craned my head upwards to read the sign on the front of the building. Oswald Chekhov Psychiatric Institute. _Psychiatric Institute? Why did Mother and Father bring me to a mental asylum?  
  
_

My question was soon answered when I overheard Father check me in with the receptionist for ‘displays of schizophrenic behaviors’. My eyes widened in realization, finally putting everything together. That student I heard outside the bathroom running in the halls wasn’t doing so because they were late, they were running to tell the Principal about what they had overheard me saying to Jason in the bathroom.  
  


I ran to my parents to plead with them to take me away from here, to not let them take me, but they simply brushed me off. Father asked the receptionist with an annoyed tone if the orderlies could ‘take her to her room so I won’t have to hear her incessant babble’. I screamed and cried out, begging to be let go, but no one seemed to hear me. Not even a glance in my direction.

Once the orderlies had dragged me to my ‘room’ they threw me inside, slamming my body against the small table in the middle of the room, and swiftly locked the door behind them. Rising to my feet, I sat down on what I assumed would be my bed and looked around the room. It was small, cramped. There was a large window looking out at the woods, bars covering the glass. There were two beds, a single table between them.

My body jerked when I noticed the small frame of a girl with her legs pulled to her chest, hiding in the corner of the room on the other bed. I looked curiously at her for a moment before her head snapped upwards, eyes wide with fear and looked in my direction.

“Who are you?”

“My name is Ruby, what’s yours?”

“..Betty”

“Hi Betty, it’s nice to meet you. If I may, what is this place? What happens to the patients here?”

At this question, Betty froze and tried to push herself impossibly farther into the corner of the room, curling into herself and starting to shake. Above the rattling of the bed frame against the wall, I could hear quiet muttering coming from the girl. Slowly getting up from my bed I made my way over to hers, making a soft noise to let her know I was there. I reached my arm out to try and comfort her, and at my touch, Betty jumped, but upon realizing who it was she relaxed slightly.

I started to rub my hand up and down her shoulder, and after a few moments, she began to speak.

“Most of us stay here, on the first floor. We might as well be invisible to the people who work here. The ones who are good, who come from wealthy families and behave, they go upstairs. They get clean clothes every day and meals every few hours. But the bad ones...the ones who misbehave go downstairs. They take them in the middle of the night to the basement. Sometimes the ones who take them, can’t keep a hold of them and you can hear their screams. But they always get caught.”

I looked at Betty for a moment before getting a determined look in my eye. Getting up from the bed, I walked towards the door. Looking out the small window, I searched for an orderly or nurse, any kind of staff. Seeing one, I started yelling for them, saying I needed help. Hearing footsteps coming towards the door, I backed up until the back of my knees hit the table behind me, bracing myself and straightening my spine, waving Betty back to her corner when she came forward to try and warn me.

“What do you want?”

“What’s in the basement?”

Scoffing at me, the orderly turned around and began to close the door before I made a split decision and spat at the back of his head. The man froze, slowly turning around. Before I could even see him coming towards me, I was knocked to the floor, pain blooming across my cheek. I blinked rapidly for a moment, confused as to why this all felt so familiar, but before I could explore the possibilities, he was coming towards me again. As quickly as I was on the floor I was dragged back up to my feet, focusing on the man in front of me not noticing the presence bubbling up from my subconscious.

I tensed my body and waited for the next punch, and after a moment it came. Again and again, hit after hit to my stomach, the man holding me still by my shoulder with his other hand. My mind started to become slower, and although I could still feel his fists meeting my skin there was no pain. I was confused until I finally noticed the presence with me. I closed my eyes and focused, reaching out to see who had come to my aid. I startled when I realized who it was. My childhood protector. Leon. Before I could question his presence after all these years, I felt my body moving of its own volition.

Turning my attention back to the orderly, I saw my hand curl into a fist and move towards him, almost in slow motion. After my -if I could even call it that- first punch, time seemed to right itself and everything was normal again. I could see and feel my body attacking the man in front of me, but I knew I was not the one controlling it. Soon, however, I, and whoever was with me, were overtaken by the orderly and were trapped in his arms. I, we, screamed and struggled against his grip and tried to escape, but we weren’t strong enough.

The man grew tired of our fight against him and knocked our head against the nearest surface with his full strength, immediately knocking us out.

When I woke, I couldn’t feel Leon anymore. Moving my head around, I took in my surroundings. I was laying on a dirty concrete floor, a tattered rag beneath me. The walls were cracked in most places, a single light bulb hanging precariously from the ceiling in the middle of the room. On the farthest wall, there was what appeared to be a broken mirror. Standing up from my place on the floor, I walked towards it. Flinching from the horrible headache I had, I reached my hand up to my head. I froze when I felt dried blood, but quickly putting it aside.

A stranger seemed to look back at me. Blue eyes looking into my own, black hair falling around their shoulders. After a moment of looking in the mirror, I heard a voice in my head.

_“How is the body so old? It was only ten yesterday.”_

_“Leon? Is that you?”_

_“Yes? Who else would it be, Ruby? ...What happened to us, Ruby.”_

_“Oh, Leon..you’ve been away for so long. We’re seventeen now.”  
“What?! How could I have been away for so long? It felt like hours in the greenhouse, not years!”_

_“What happened to you Leon? Why did you leave us?”_

_“After Bruce went away, Vivian came to me. She told me it wasn’t safe for me to be around the others for a little while. She took me to a place I’d never seen before. We sat in the greenhouse for a long time and talked about what had happened, and we just...talked and tended to the plants inside.”_

_“What does my brother going to prison have to do with anything? What ‘happened’?”_

_“Are you telling me you didn’t feel anything when that orderly was beating us? A sense of deja vu perhaps?”_

_“I..did, yeah. How do you know that? Leon, tell me what happened right now.”_

_“Think about it, Rubes. Why would I mention Bruce in relation to what just happened to us?”_

_“Wh- I don’t know why, Leon, otherwise I wouldn’t be asking you. There’s no relation, it’s not like my brother beat me when I was younger.”_

_“...”_

_“Or maybe that's exactly what it's like. He did, didn’t he. He beat us. That’s why Mother and Father reported him. They always told me he got mixed up with the wrong people. But this…”_

_“I’m sorry Ruby, I never wanted you to find out. But I think it’s time.”_

_“Time? Time for what? Leon-”_

My sentence was cut off as my mind was flooded with memories. Snapshots at first. I was five, then seven, then eight, seeing my brother beat me at every age. As we got older, the hits got stronger. Then suddenly I was seeing him being walked to the back of a police car by two officers, crying, confused as to why they were taking my big brother away from me.

As suddenly as I was overwhelmed by memories, they were gone. I looked around and realized I had slid down the wall and curled my arms around my knees, hugging them to my chest. Brushing my hand against my cheek, I saw the tears collecting in my palm.

My eyes began to flutter shut, my consciousness being dragged back into my mind. When I opened my eyes again, all I saw was black. Turning my head, I noticed a figure in the distance walking towards me. As it got closer, I heard a voice.

“ _Hello, Ruby.”_

_“Leon? Is that really you?”_

_“It’s really me. Flesh and blood; well, close enough anyway.”_

He stopped a few feet from me, holding out his arms. There was a look of acceptance on his face, but it was also a very sad look.

_“Leon, why are you looking at me like that? Why are you holding your arms out?”_

_“Just get over here Ruby. You’ll understand.”_

I was confused and scared, but I knew Leon would take care of me like he always had. I moved forward into his arms, wrapping my own around his waist as his rested around mine. I closed my eyes and seemed to fade away.

The room slowly came into focus around me. Looking up at the ceiling, I got up from my position on the floor to my knees, using the cold of the concrete beneath me to ground myself. Disoriented, I tried to stand but found I could not. Turning my head towards the prison-like door of the room, I crawled towards it. The bars were old, rusted and falling apart. Through the bars, I could see the stairs that must lead to the ground floor, and behind them a room that looked identical to the one I currently resided in.

Straining my eyes to see further inside the room, I jerked my body backward when my eyes locked with those of another. After a moment, I moved back towards the door, calling out to whoever else was down here with me.

“Hello? Is there someone back there?”

“Depends. Who are you?”

I opened my mouth to answer as I always had, to say that my name was Ruby, but I stopped myself. It wasn’t right anymore. I searched my mind, trying to find a name that would fit me as I am now. Pausing for another moment, I answered.

“My name’s Orion. What about you?”

“Charlotte. Pleasure. What did you do to get sent down here? You have to do something very foolish to upset them that much.”

“Well, I...might have attacked an orderly.”

“You did what?! Do you know what they do to you down here-”

Before Charlotte could finish her sentence sudden footsteps were coming down the stairs. Charlotte and I locked eyes once more before retreating to the farthest corner of our respective rooms. As they made their way through the room and into the light, I saw that they were a man. His lab coat was pristine, large enough that it nearly hid his slim figure. His brown hair was curly and somewhat unkempt, and the beginnings of a beard could be seen on his jaw.

The man turned his head towards Charlotte, and almost immediately dismissed her with an uninterested look on his face. He next turned towards me, pausing for a second before making his way over to the bars of the door. Kneeling, he made a motion with his hand, beckoning me closer. I moved slowly towards him, not wanting to envoke an angry response.

“Hello there. And who might you be?”

Quickly deciding not to tempt fate, I lied to the man.

“Ruby. Are you a doctor? Are you here to help me?”

“My name is Dr. Oswald. I run this fine institution. I am indeed here to help you, Ruby. Can you tell me what brought your parents to admit you here?”

“Father said I displayed schizophrenic behaviors, but I’m not sure what that means.”

“Yes, I know what your father told our receptionist. But I’m asking you, dear.”

“I...hear voices. Sometimes. It’s like I have people trapped inside my head.”

When I saw the spark of intrigue in Dr. Oswald’s eye and the smile growing on his face, I knew I had made the wrong decision by confiding in him. He turned his head back towards the stairs, without breaking eye contact with me, and called for two orderlies to come down and ‘help with this one’.

The orderlies immediately made a beeline for the door to the room I was in, one taking a set of keys from his belt and unlocking the door. The men came into the room and grabbed each of my arms, forcing me to walk in a room hidden behind the stairs. I struggled against them, hearing Charlotte’s screams for them to let me go. Inside the room, I saw machines lining every wall, a single chair in the middle reminiscent of those in a dentist's office except for the straps that I assumed was there to hold me in place.

The room smelled of chemicals and death, making me light-headed. Dr. Oswald made his way calmly to a machine in the corner, fiddling with what looked like some kind of helmet, seemingly unbothered by the screams coming from outside and the grunts of the orderlies as they forced me into the chair and did up the straps. Only once I was firmly in place, incapable of moving anything but my eyes did Dr. Oswalf look in my direction with a smile on his face as if nothing was wrong.

“So, voices you say. Well, I think that’s very interesting Ruby. But I’m sure I have the very thing that will fix you right up!”

Turning back around, he picked up the helmet-like object and placed it on my head, babbling on about something to do with ‘improperly firing neurons in your brain’, and how a ‘quick shock from this will make you right as rain’. I froze in horror when he said shock, piecing together what the device must have been. We had all heard of the leaps in modern medicine electroshock therapy has made in recent years. But I knew the truth. These men, these ‘doctors’, they didn’t want to help people like me, or Charlotte, or Betty. All they wanted was an excuse to use their toys and find new and creative ways to torment those that are different.

Moving back to the table the helmet was previously sitting on, Dr. Oswald flipped a few switches and held his hand above a button.

“Now, this might hurt a little, but I promise it will all be better soon.”

Tears streamed down my cheeks as I realized this is how I was to die. As Dr. Oswald pushed the button and thousands of volts of electricity raced throughout my entire body, there was a single thought running through my head before the world went black, my bone-chilling screams echoing through the hospital.

_I’m so sorry Jason._


End file.
